Manuel Ocampo is one of my favorite artists to talk about, if it weren’t obvious enough. Looking at this (incomplete!) list of exhibitions and surveys that he has been a part of over the years is enough to make me kind of fold up into a ball. He has been a part of so many cool projects (a Beck inlay, a show in 1994 alongside Jean-Michel Basquiat, to name a few). A documentary, by Phillip Rodriguez, has even been made of him because he made work that was so compelling to the American and international audience at the time of its making, the title of which I have stolen for this blog post.

My favorite thing about Manuel Ocampo is that he has actual thoughts and opinions about art—the local and international art scenes, the art industry, art as dialogue, global implications of art, and so on and so forth. I interviewed him for an article in UNO Magazine, which came out last October, and I was surprised at how thoughtful his answers were, and how earnest he is (and polite!), about them. I really thought he would give me a hard time and would be annoyingly self-important, but he was so gracious. AND SO I BECAME A BIGGER FAN. I am such a big fan, I braved my own awkward turtledness and visited his studio in December. (Here is proof!) Gross, I know.

Here are some excerpts from the raw interview for UNO, some thoughts to chew on. At the time of the interview, he had been organizing Filipino group show (his curatorial debut) in the Freies Museum in Berlin last year called Bastards of Misrepresentation

The how’s and the why’s of the artist-initiated exhibit, Bastards:

The organization for the Berlin Show started in January of this year but I’ve been trying to get a group show of Manila artists since 2006. I tried to propose this group show to the Fowler Museum in UCLA 3 years ago but Americans are just not keen on what is happening in Manila. A show featuring artists working in Asian cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Jakarta, even Ho Chi Minh—yes, they would support but Manila… People get very skeptical of Filipinos.

Why? It has to do with how we support the Arts. It’s a question of how our government supports culture, how our businesses support culture. And if it is based on that, then the Philippines really doesn’t have any Art to speak of. That’s the reason why this project is artist-initiated. Because no curator, art administrator, nor government arts funding organization can think this up without thinking of how much profit they can make for themselves first.

I know it’s corny and such a cliche but I believe in the Socialists’ and early Christians’ way of thinking that when one invests in one’s own community, meaning the people who we have relationships with, we get a lot in return. Not only will it enrich lives, but perhaps give us a sense of pride in this abstract idea of a place we call home, and that is where we can profit. And that is how we can be cool and feel confident about ourselves as human beings. And the irony of it all is that we need to go outside of the country where we reside in order for us to achieve this goal, in order for us to locate ourselves within a context where we as artists can fully function and participate.

On why he chose to lead the group show in the first place:

Traveling and working in Europe three times a year because of my show schedule gives me opportunities to meet with collectors, curators, art administrators, and fellow artists. I get asked all the time about what Manila is like. People are curious as to why I chose to live here so I describe them the art scene, the artists, and my art collection. I always promote the artists and the art being made in this metropolis because Filipinos are known to be very insular and Manila, a culturally vacuous city. The stereotype has some truth to it, and since I live here, I aim to disprove it. How? By organizing shows of artists living in Metropolitan Manila area to other places like Europe and also bringing artists outside of the Philippines to Manila.

One of my goals is to create a dialog between cultures. I want to live in a city where things are happening. I don’t want to be living here and fantasizing, “If only we had a museum like the Kunsthaus in Zurich,” or “If only QC is like Kreuzberg,” or “If only U.P. can invite Tobias Rehberger, Gabriel Orozco, Olafur Eliasson to lecture just like what the University in Bangkok did.” I/we want to make it so that this can possibly happen.

It’s such a fascinating thing to be listening to someone who has cemented his place in modern art history talk about creating a place for local art in the international art scene. I think I’m most surprised at how involved he is being at making this happen, because it’s true—not a lot of influential and important bodies of people have been doing much to put the Philippines on the map, art-wise, so to speak.

While it was made in 1999, Manuel Ocampo: God is My Co-Pilot is still thought-provoking. I saw it with my family (haha) the other day, and I felt like a lot of the issues I have with art and the industry were acknowledged and brought to the public’s awareness. It’s an exploration of the multi-cultural implications of art, how the shift of millieu and the formation of personal and cultural history shape a person’s perspective and output. And how disturbing images created by a person don’t necessarily indicate psychological problems or moral depravity. And how artists who aren’t “anybody” are often treated like shit.

I will probably watch it again, so I can give it a proper review, but all things considered, I highly recommend it.

Also, because people often ask me to tell them about exhibits and when they open (instead of just posting pictures of the openings, oops), here is a heads up. Manuel Ocampo is having a show with a bunch of other artists on Tuesday, February 8, 2011 at West Gallery. It starts at 6PM and there’s going to be food, and great art, and great people… and obviously, Manuel Ocampo, so you can ogle and fangirl from a distance, which is what I am planning to do.

West Gallery is located at 48 West Avenue, Quezon City. Here is a map.

I’d been looking for alternative books to deconstruct (much like these), because I couldn’t find any of the patterned ones I usually used anymore. So, I got this copy of The Science Year from 1967 for Php 35 (less than a dollar), and surprise, surprise—I could not do it. It’s just a really nice book. It has colored photos and a 3D-enabled page with a cellophane-y insert. I’m hoping I find another copy, because I think it would really be a great book to mount on a wall and play around with, but I love it too much right now to cut, poke, or prod it.

In the wake of The White Stripes’ sudden break-up, I snooped around my brother’s room and carefully pored over his Under the Great White Northern Lights special edition box set, particularly gravitating towards the book of photographs that Autumn de Wilde carefully composed, documenting their life on tour in 2007. It’s on sale on Amazon right now, for a super marked down price, so go get it if you can! It’s absolutely beautiful.

(I have yet to purchase her book of photographs of Elliott Smith, called… Elliott Smith, but it’s been on my list.)

It reminded me of this other book of tour photos taken by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner called I Hope You Are All Happy Now, which was what eventually would push me to actively photograph and document most of my early college life. I’ve also always been a fan of tour photos on the explosions in the sky website. I think those best capture what I wanted to go for with my photographs.

I’ve always had issues with being called a photographer… I think that’s largely why I stopped obsessively taking pictures. I just really wanted to kind of take photos of my day, and being called a photographer really made me anxious about this great room for failure that came with that label. Because I know nothing about the technicalities of photography. I really could not give a frak about aperture and settings. I rely a lot on “feeling out” the alchemy of light and space, so whenever someone talks to me about photography, I panic.

But that’s another story. Leafing through these pages again, I’m reminded of why I fell in love with photography in the first place. So, in remembrance and as a sort of tangential tribute to these people, I made a short book thing of a made-up band. I hope you enjoy. :)

You can view and download it here.

I was going to add text, but then I got lazy. Please, please, please enjoy it. (I COMMAND YOU. TO ENJOY IT.) And while you’re at it, please listen to this song.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I hope it looks somewhat like a tour? And I hope someday I can tag along someone who is on tour. Cough, Marvin, cough.